Itsumi Nagakura - Week 9 - A04

To Fight with Love

In Academic Symbiosis: A Manifesto on Tenure and Promotion in Asian American Studies the author Wei Ming Dariotis explains a new attitude of resistance as portrayed in popular culture. This new attitude is to focus on "healing, not hating" or in other words, instead of fighting what we despise, we should protect what we love. To adapt this idea to the context of Asian American studies, I feel that it is important to understand that racism and discrimination that people of colour face, stems from hatred. It may sound a bit too optimistic and idealistic, but I believe that to fight racism and discrimination, hatred should not feul the actions we make in the process of it. To do so, would simply add oil to the fire that already burns so high. 

When I log in on social media, I see many people of colour continuously hating on white people through something called "cancel culture" which justifies cyber-bullying. I cannot state that these people are saints and many of them are privileged. I will not defend those who were "cancelled" because they were making racist comments. But I do believe that "cancel culture" is not the way to fight injustice because it stems from hatred. To fight injustice and prejudice, we as a collective community should understand how these ideas are integrated into so many aspects that surround us in life to the point that people of colour can even be racist to their own race. We should feul us in the fight to racial equality should be love not hate. It sounds cheesy but we should fight based on how we wish our later generations don't need to struggle more than they should in school, or change their hair because their teacher said that it looks "dirty" or "like a thug". In order to fight racial injustice, we should fight because we went to protect the people we love, not because we want to destroy our enemies. 

Works Cited

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. (Kindle Version)